NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy expects to choose the maker of its sixth-generation F/A-XX fighter in August, the Chief of Naval Operations said today.
The long-awaited decision will settle an arduous battle between Boeing and Northrop Grumman for the contract, which has been delayed for about a year as the Pentagon weighed whether to cancel the program, set to replace the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornets and E/A-18 Growlers.
“The need for the F/A-XX is unquestionable. Peer competitors and even lesser adversaries are improving their anti-air capabilities,” Adm. Daryl Caudle told reporters on the sidelines of Sea Air Space conference today, according to a transcript of the roundtable provided by the Navy.
Caudle’s announcement of the forthcoming downselect appears to finally confirm that the F/A-XX program will move into its engineering and manufacturing development stage. An industry source told Breaking Defense last week that the Navy was set to release a revised request for proposals as early as April 17, which would set the stage for the downselect to occur in the coming months.
The White House had previously raised industrial base concerns about F/A-XX development and production occurring simultaneously as the Air Force’s F-47 fighter, stating last year that awarding F/A-XX “is likely to delay the higher-priority F-47.”
The CNO in his comments to reporters this morning appeared to acknowledge ongoing anxieties about the fighter jet industrial base, stating that the Navy is being “very careful not to oversubscribe contractors who are already managing F-35 and other major programs.
“One of the contractors who would make this plane for us is in a place where they really can’t deliver in the timeframe we need it. So there was a ‘check twice, cut once’ kind of mentality here on this decision,” Caudle said.
Despite scrutiny from the White House, Congress has been a strong supporter of the F/A-XX program, adding $897 million above the Navy’s request for the new aircraft in the fiscal 2026 budget, on top of $750 million from last year’s reconciliation bill.
The Pentagon’s FY27 budget request includes $140 million for the program, with $68 million in the base budget and $72 million requested as part of a forthcoming reconciliation bill.
Lockheed Martin, which was once competing for the F/A-XX contract, was previously knocked out of the competition after submitting a bid that didn’t meet the service’s criteria, Breaking Defense first reported last year.
Diana Stancy contributed to this story.
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